**Diary Entry**
It was late when the knocking started.
“Oliver, let me in. Let me in! I’m your mother! You owe me money—they won’t take me back unless I pay!” The voice was shrill, relentless. “You have to!”
Oliver leaned against the door, eyes shut. No. He wouldn’t open it. His whole childhood had been marked by that label—*the odd one out*. He walked to his room, lay on the bed, shoved in his earphones, and turned the music up loud.
His early years were a blur. He remembered a remote-controlled car for his fifth birthday, a cake, friends from nursery. His father was still around then.
Then those people from *the group* moved in. And the celebrations stopped.
His mother fell under their influence quickly. His dad, unable to bear her fanaticism, left, signed the divorce, and agreed to send child support. But that money never clothed or fed Oliver. To him, the group had always been like an octopus—seemingly harmless, until its tentacles locked around you.
His sixth birthday passed unmarked. So did the next ten. *Their* holidays were the only ones allowed—special days when they ate something decent. The rest of the time, he and his mother went door-to-door, preaching.
She sold their flat fast—the group’s lawyers helped. Oliver was left with nothing, registered in some rundown hostel miles from their old home. The money went straight to *them*.
School was hell. He wore second-hand clothes from charity donations, got into fights, and was punished twice—once by the bullies, then by the group for torn clothes and “lazy preaching.”
By sixteen, he’d had enough. He ran away—a thousand miles to London, worked odd jobs, got into college, then university. Now he was a successful programmer with his own flat.
But the fear he’d carried for years came true. His mother and her fanatics found him again. A convenient target.
It started a week ago. She ambushed him after work.
“Hello, son! I’ve been waiting *hours*.”
“Why?”
“I’m your *mother*! I missed you!”
He bought her dinner—fish and chips in the park.
“What about your group?” he asked. “Did you leave?”
“Not exactly. But I’m not… useful enough anymore.”
She wheedled her way into his flat. For days, he let himself hope. She cooked, asked about his life. He thawed, talked too much.
Then she vanished—along with the cash from his desk drawer. His savings, his bonus from a big project.
She returned with two men, grinning.
“Sweetheart! Your money’s gone to a *good cause*! You should be proud!”
“That was *my* money. Give it back, or I’ll report it stolen.”
“Would your own mother steal?” she sneered. “Who’d believe you?”
He kicked them out, changed the locks. But the next morning, she was outside with her cronies, wailing about abandonment.
At work, his boss called him in.
“Oliver… we’ve had calls. About you kicking your mother out. A major client refuses to work with you now.”
He quit that day.
The calls started next.
“Like the demo of your new life? We can ruin you completely.”
Flyers appeared overnight—lies about him, his face plastered on them. A neighbor muttered, “He seemed so decent.”
That night, he booked a one-way ticket to Edinburgh. He’d sell the flat later. Right now, he just needed to disappear.
**Lesson:** Some chains aren’t physical. The hardest prison to escape is the one others build in your mind. But running isn’t failure—sometimes, it’s survival.
